StarHub wants to disrupt Singapore’s tuition industry

Singapore’s tuition industry, where parents hire private tutors to give their kids the extra edge for school examinations, stood at S$820 million ($565 million) in 2008, double the figure from a decade earlier and just under a third of the nation’s education spending.

StarHub (SGX:CC3), Singapore’s second largest telco by mobile subscribers known best for its cable TV service, wants a slice of that pie.

While its efforts to penetrate education have been low-key, it has begun stepping up its marketing by announcing a partnership with Popular Bookstore, a well-known brand in Singapore, to introduce a new online learning service called AssessMe.

Essentially, the web-based, mobile-friendly service lets parents and primary school children access thousands of digital worksheets for English, mathematics, and science. The content is curated by Popular’s in-house team of former school teachers, and will be updated weekly to follow the national teaching syllabus. Chinese and secondary school subjects will be introduced from next year.

The service costs S$11.90 ($9.46) per month per child, but parents can get it for free if they subscribe to one of the telco’s cable broadband plans.

Part of a larger plan

AssessMe is just one component of StarHub’s Learning Hub website, which gathers all of the company’s educational products in one location.

According to Stephen Lee, head of i3 at StarHub, the aim of the website is to “offer critical learning tools that supplement the school curriculum” and give students access to these materials wherever they are.

It’s currently testing video conferencing tuition for the Chinese language, where a teacher can mentor a student using a microphone and webcam.

StarHub is supplementing its educational content by providing Teamie, an online platform where educators can communicate, share knowledge, and monitor the progress of students using Learning Hub. The Singapore-based startup was the winner of Tech in Asia’s Startup Arena competition in 2012.

StarHub will also introduce educational video content on the platform, such as Big History, a documentary about the universe, and ZooMoo, a show about animals that offers interactivity through an app.

If StarHub’s experimentation with education develops into a full-fledged service, it could give the tuition industry a tough fight since students would be able to get enrichment content at home and receive one-on-one attention without a tutor needing to travel. Theoretically, there’s cost savings for everyone, though parents will need to be convinced that not having an instructor by the child’s side will not compromise teaching quality.

Like SingTel, its biggest competitor, StarHub is betting that its penetration into the mobile and home entertainment space will help it develop a digital content business that can do battle against traditional media players in Singapore.

Leading StarHub’s transformation into an online media company is i3, a department within the telco that’s involved in all things to do with internet innovation.

StarHub versus Google

Recently, StarHub announced a partnership with popular note-taking app Evernote to bring a special edition of the software to StarHub subscribers. It unveiled an API that allows developers to access call and SMS features. It even launched an e-bookstore called Booktique that it hopes can succeed whereSingTel and MediaCorp failed.

MediaCorp, Singapore’s largest traditional broadcaster, had a tough time with its e-bookstore ilovebooks.com due to what it describes as a lack of access to book publishers and insufficient traction in terms of number of titles, which numbered at 700,000. Furthermore, it doesn’t really have a foothold in mobile devices, making its app a tough sell.

StarHub clearly has some advantages over MediaCorp in this arena. But it has been vague about what edge it has over SingTel, a company with a far larger mobile subscription base. SingTel shut down its online bookstore Skoob in September because it felt its other businesses had stronger growth potential.

Recently, the competition in digital books has gotten even tougher. Google has brought its Play Books store to Singapore, carrying with it massive economies of scale, an easy-to-use payment system, and wide distribution through its Android devices. Again, it’s unclear how Booktique can stand up against Google’s might.

Whatever the case, the telco’s experiment is bound to have mixed results. But for startups looking for a distribution and marketing channel, this is good news since its easier for the telco to procure a ready-made product than build something from scratch. Startups have plenty to offer here.

With that in mind, Teamie could become just one of many local tech startups that will have StarHub as a customer.

New ideas from Asia this week

1. AirHelp | Hong Kong

Launched in January this year, Hong Kong-based AirHelp helps flyers process compensation claims for flights in Europe that are delayed or cancelled, or where you get bumped from the flight.

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2. Chotot | Vietnam

Started two years ago, Chotot, a subsidiary of a larger corporation 701Search, is a C2C classifieds site with a product catalog that includes motorbikes, mobile phones, computers, household appliances, furniture, and pet goods.

3. Bobamusic | China

Currently still in beta, Beijing-based Bobamusic is an app which reveals a selection of local clubs and streaming sets by DJs who have recently played at the listed venues, giving users an idea of each club’s sound before they decide which one to go to

4. WhatsNew | Thailand

Backed by Ardent Capital, WhatsNew owns and operates e-commerce sites including Petloft and Venbi, which sell pet and baby products respectively. WhatsNew interlinks each site to one other, allowing customers to use one login and one shared checkout to buy from all websites under the company.

According to WhatsNew, both of these sites have become number one in their respective categories online..

5. aCommerce | Thailand

Thailand-based platform builder for e-commerce, aCommerce, revealed this week that it has received investment led by NTT Docomo Ventures, with participation from CyberAgent Ventures, aCommerce staff members themselves, and several other strategic angel investors.

Operating in Thailand and Indonesia, the startup aims to break the e-commerce bottleneck in the region, offering services like building an e-store, running a warehouse, doing customer service, handling returned orders, and more.

8 Powerful Ways to Improve Your Body Language

e're all students of body language. Too bad we're not students of our own body language.

Here are some tips to help ensure your body language works for you and not against you:

1. Prep with a power pose.

It turns out Leo was on to something: According to Harvard professor Amy Cuddy, two minutes of power posing--standing tall, holding your arms out or towards the sky, orstanding like Superman with your hands on hips--will dramatically increase your confidence.

Try it before you step into a situation where you know you'll feel nervous, insecure, or intimidated. (Just make sure no one is watching.)

It may sound strange... but it works.

2. Dial up your energy level.

Imagine you've just led a meeting. Now rate your energy level on a scale of 1-10.

Most people will give themselves an 8 or 9. Unfortunately, most of the people in the room will give you a 3 or 4. What feels high energy to us can come across flat and lifeless to others.

Next time, remind yourself to dial up the energy by 20 percent or so. You don't have to go all Matthew Lesko, but you should definitely display more enthusiasm and passion than you would under other circumstances.

3. When the going gets tough, start smiling.

Frowning, grimacing, glowering, and other negative facial expressions send a signal to your brain that whatever you're doing is difficult. That causes your brain to send cortisol into your bloodstream, which raises your stress levels. Soon stress begets more stress--and pretty soon you're a hot mess.

Instead, force yourself to smile. It works.

Plus when you smile, that helps other people feel less stress, too. Most of us mirror the actions of others, so if you smile, other people will smile. If you nod, others will nod.

And if you frown, soon others will be frowning, too.

4. Play supermodel to reduce conflict.

Standing face to face can feel confrontational. One way to reduce the instinctive level of threat you and the other person may feel is to shift your stance slightly so you're standing at an angle--much like models who almost never stand with their bodies square to the camera.

If you're confronted, don't back away; just shift to a slight angle. And if you wish to appear less confrontational, approach the person and stand at a 45-degree angle (while still making direct eye contact, of course.)

Best of all, try to find a way to stand side by side, because that implicitly signals collaboration.

5. Don't gesture above your shoulders.

Unless you're one of these guys. Or this guy. Otherwise it just looks odd.

Watch any Steve Jobs presentation. He never raises his arms above his shoulders.

That should be enough of a reason for you not to, either.

6. Talk more with your hands.

The right gestures add immeasurably to your words. Think about how you talk and act when you're not "on."

Then act the same way when you're in professional situations. You'll feel more confident, think more clearly, naturally punctuate certain words and phrases, and fall into a much better rhythm.

7. Use props to engage.

Body positions affect attitude. People who stand or sit with their arms crossed and heads tilted forward are naturally more resistant and defensive.

So pull them out of their resistant poses. Shake hands. Ask for their business card. Offer a drink. (I have a friend who is the king of, "I'm going to get a water, can I bring you one?" He feels the act of handing someone a bottle of water is not only courteous but also forces them to open up their body position, which also helps overcome resistance.)

Or if you're speaking to a group, ask questions that involve raising hands. Pass around relevant items. Find a way to get people to stand or change seats.

The more people move and open up the more engaged they feel.

8. Think before you speak.

Eye contact is important, but it's hard to maintain eye contact when you have to think. Most of us look up, or down, or away and then we swing back when we've gathered our thoughts.

Here's a better way. If you have to look away to think, do it before you answer. Take a pause, look thoughtful, glance away, and then return to making eye contact when you start speaking.

Then your words are even more powerful because your eyes support them.

Ride:HUD is a Google Glass-style display add-on for motorbike helmets

The Internet of Things is gradually transforming households into smart spaces and we’ve even previously seen the same concept applied to vehicles, with models such as the Xkuty scooter enabling owners to take advantage of smartphone control. However, separate devices can take drivers’ attention from the road. That’s where the NUVIZ Ride:HUD comes in, offering a head up display that overlays pertinent, real-time data onto motorcycle riders’ helmet visors.

Developed through a collaboration between HOLOEYE Systems and APX Labs, the innovation uses technology similar to Google Glass, whereby a small transparent display is located in the user’s peripheral vision. The NUVIS Ride:HUD itself clips onto the chinstrap of any motorcycle helmet and syncs with the rider’s smartphone. The display is controlled through a companion app, which offers the capability of showing GPS-enabled maps and directions, local weather and driving stats such as speed and distance. The HUD can also show who’s calling and what music is playing, as well as toggling between photo and video capture. Rather than refocus their attention away from the road to access this information, the device is calibrated to allow riders to keep the road in their vision. The video below shows the device in action:

The Ride:HUD does have some competition from Skully Helmets, a company currently beta testing its own motorcycle HUDs, but NUVIZ could beat it to the market through its current Kickstarter, which it is using to launch the Ride:HUD. The device can be secured with a backing of USD 499 or more. Are there ways that similar HUD technology could be developed for vehicle drivers of all kinds?

Stop Procrastinating: 5 Tips From Ben Franklin

Benjamin Franklin--author, printer, politician, postmaster, satirist, inventor, musician, and diplomat--clearly knew how to get things done.

After scanning the long list of Benjamin Franklin’s accomplishments, one can only come to one conclusion: The American Renaissance Man probably never had an idle day in his life. In his 84 years he became a prominent author, printer, politician, postmaster, satirist, inventor, musician, and diplomat.

There's much we can learn  from Benjamin Franklin’s work habits and outlook on life that can increase our own productivity.

Here are five ways Franklin overcame the spectre of lazy, wasted days:

1. Start a group and share knowledge

When Franklin was 21, he was a struggling printer in Philadelphia. To increase his connections and to learn more about his industry, he created the Junto group-;a collection of tradesmen who wanted to better their craft and their community. The group had a large appetite for books, but books were expensive. Franklin helped start a library where books were bought and lent amongst Junto members. This sharing of knowledge, experience, and connections helped Franklin become a prominent and respected printer in Philadelphia.

The lesson for entrepreneurs: Find like-minded people and encourage discussion, conversation, and the exchange of ideas. A community of intellectual support will motivate you to get to work, sharpen your ideas, and impress your peers. Websites like Meetup.com and others make creating a local or even international group simple and easy.

2. Attack opportunities

“To succeed,” Franklin writes, “jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”

We can all agree, but when opportunity comes knocking we often look the other way. It’s not because we ignore new prospects. It’s because opportunity isn’t dressed the way we expect. We often think that opportunity comes only in the form of a golden egg or a million-dollar lottery ticket or a new job offer. But more often than not, opportunity comes in smaller, less ostentatious packages.

Opportunity rings your doorbell each time you’re invited to a meeting or someone asks you for a small favor. These random invitations and favors aren’t distractions-;they’re opportunities that open different doors and help you meet new people.

Young people are especially good at this. They are happy to take on any challenges, which is why Franklin wrote, “Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.”

Lesson for entrepreneurs: Avoid procrastination by jumping at all opportunities, even if they appear to be distractions. Meeting new people, reinforcing old friendships, and helping distant colleagues will open the door for future opportunities.

3. Time is a commodity in short supply

Franklin writes, “Lost time is never found again.” This sentiment may sound like it came from the pen of a depressed poet, but it’s really an inspirational call to action.

Franklin worked, created, and lived knowing that time is scarce. He never put off his curiosity or creativity for the next day.

Franklin strikes this theme a lot. He writes, “You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.”

Lesson for entrepreneurs: Procrastinators should view time as a scarce resource. Each day should be a laboratory wherein you work, discover, and create-;not a jail cell where you wait impatiently for a lucky break.

4. Make a list

Franklin, along with inventing bifocals and the lightning rod, is also said to have invented the pro-and-con list. Writing to Joseph Priestly, he described how he would resolve hard decisions by drawing by dividing a sheet of paper into “pro” and “con” columns. Then he’d write the best and worst aspects of a particularly tough choice, and eliminate the pros and cons that cancelled each other out. The side with the most items remaining won out.

Lesson for entrepreneurs: Chronic procrastinators would be wise to create their own pro-and-con lists as often as they can. Writing out and seeing the pros and cons of certain actions can generate productivity. Facing cons can be motivating while acknowledging pros can be inspiring.

5. Fail often; fail hard-;but don’t expect to

While Franklin was an able inventor we can be sure that his sketchbook contained a few far-off, doomed-to-fail ideas. Not every pen stroke Franklin made was straight, sound, and full of wit. And that was fine with Franklin.

Franklin writes, “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”

Procrastinators are often stunned into inaction by their fear of failure. They want their first efforts to be perfect and, in the end, never attempt anything of any significance.

On the other hand, the part-time procrastinator may be all too ready to fail. Franklin warns against this as well and comments, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Lesson for entrepreneurs: Don’t expect to be perfect. But don’t go jump into things expecting to fail, or eager to fail, either.

Procrastination is one of those unwanted guests that pops over every so often and doesn’t leave no matter how many hints you give. It’s an inevitable nuisance that can’t be obliterated, but it certainly can be controlled.

If all else fails you can rely on the following words from Franklin to buck up your resolve: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Mapkin wants to bring the personal touch back to map-making

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Remember the days before navigation algorithms served up the perfect route to get you from Point A to Point B? When instead, a friend would scrawl a map on the back of an envelope, making a note about her favorite place to stop for pancakes and the cheapest ski rental shop?
A Cambridge startup called Mapkin wants to revive that personalized approach to cartography, with an iPhone app that promises to "make GPS fun." Mapkin has raised $200,000 in seed funding so far, from angel investors like Avid Technology founder Bill Warner and former Brightcove exec Bob Mason, and is working on raising more now.
Mapkin founders Marc Regan and John Watson previously worked together at Nuance, the Burlington-based speech recognition company, developing some of its early voice-driven mobile apps like Dragon Go. (In the photo below, Regan is on the far right, Watson second from left.)
"GPS navigation does one thing extremely well, which is getting you to the destination as fast as possible," says Regan. "But what if you want to point out the great coffee shop on the way, or know about the most scenic route for a bike ride?" That's the kind of situation Mapkin was created for. The app lets you create and share your own routes, complete with written or spoken notes on points of interest.
Regan says he used a prototype version of the app last year for guests at his wedding. "We got married in Jackson, New Hampshire, and the route took people on the shortcuts we know, pointed out the ski condo we rent every year, and brought them right to the reception. It was a fun way to make the experience start when people walked out the door." It's also easy to imagine Mapkin being helpful when you throw a party, and want to highlight the best places to park near your apartment (or the best place to pick up a bottle of wine or a 12-pack on the way.)
Maps created with Mapkin can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, or via an e-mailed link, and the recipient doesn't need to have the mobile app to view them. The four-person team is based at the Intrepid Labs shared space in East Cambridge.

Tow Choice: tow trucks to better serve motorists in need

There’s no native app to download for one, since it’s sort of silly to force stranded drivers to deal with some protracted onboarding process. Instead, everything runs in an HTML5 web app that lets users plot there positions on a map and send out a distress signal to tow drivers within a pre-determined radius.

Those tow drivers do have to download and install a native mobile app, but once they’re within range of a stranded driver they’ll respond to that and provide two things — their ETA to the car’s location and a quick price quote. They’ve only got a limited amount of time to get their offers in, and once that window is closed, users can choose the offer that best suits them. To keep the process as simple (and as uncontentious as possible), all payments are handled right up front and Tow Choice takes a 20 percent cut from each of those transactions.

To be completely honest, I’m getting to be really tired of the whole “[startup name] is the [more established startup name] of [industry]” schtick but I won’t begrudge these guys since I’m basically smitten with this idea. While popular services like AAA serve over 50 million customers in the United States and Canada, that still leaves a considerable chunk of people who could stand to benefit from a simpler, more consumer-friendly way of flagging down nearby tow trucks.

Indoor Map Apps On the Rise as Aisle411 Raises $6.3M

Google Inc. and Apple Inc. have been investing in map technology in recent years, but most of the startups they’ve acquired–like Waze and Embark–help people get around cities and highways. Is the next frontier for map technology the great indoors?

A St. Louis startup with 15 employees,Aisle411 Inc., has just raised $6.5 million in Series A funding to help people find what they need in stores, especially at groceries, pharmacies, home improvement and big box retailers, says founder and Chief Executive Nathan Pettyjohn.

In order to give directions to smartphone users in search of an item in stores, Aisle411 integrates with the inventory software used by retailers and uses proprietary data management systems and mapping engines.

The startup’s clients include Walgreen Co., Home Depot Inc., Hy-Vee Inc., Schnuck Markets Inc., Shop ‘n Save St. Louis Inc. and Price Chopper (The Golub Corp.), and others. Such retailers use Aisle411 to power store-branded apps of their own, though the company does offer a consumer-facing app as well.

Will indoor mapping ever be as big a business as navigational apps for traffic and travel? A senior analyst with Forrester, Tony Costa, said that from a consumer perspective, “the need is simply not as crucial.”

But Mr. Costa also believes indoor mapping is becoming increasingly important to retailers and advertisers who want to bring powerful data measurement, analytics and marketing capabilities to brick-and-mortar stores and other venues like college campuses, airports or malls.

Retailers pay Aisle411 about $1 per store per day to be able to offer its inventory-meets-map tech. The company’s co-founders said they will use some of the new funding to roll out real-time information about what’s in stock and where, and new reporting capabilities for retailers.

Retailers lose about 20% of potential sales due to shoppers’ navigational woes according to aisle411 research. “The larger the footprint of a store, and the less frequently a shopper shops, the more of a problem that is,” says Mr. Pettyjohn, referring to some big-box retailers and electronics and home-improvement stores.  He added that navigation remains a challenge even for “regulars” at a neighborhood grocery, when they want to buy items that are not part of their regular shopping list.

Mobile industry analyst Chetan Sharma says so far, European retailers have used indoor wireless and mobile technology more often, and more masterfully than their U.S. counterparts. For example, Mr. Sharma said, European stores commonly apply smartphone-readable NFC tags to their shelves to give shoppers more information about an item there. They also use digital signage and digital shopping carts that display customized in-store ads or coupons, respectively.

Cultivation Capital General Partner Cliff Holekamp, an Aisle411 investor, says the St. Louis venture firm expects the company to ramp up sales of its software-as-a-service within retail, with the goal of attaining 25% market share among groceries in the U.S. in the next year.

He sees an opportunity for Aisle411 to go beyond mapping and to offer contextually relevant coupons and deals in stores as well as other location-based services.

Aisle411′s potential competitors range from Point Inside Inc. and FourSquare, to map software developers like Meridian, acquired by Aruba Networks in May this year

Drug Prescriptions Get A Mobile Update

Doctors' paper prescriptions come with two drawbacks: they're easy to lose, and getting the medication requires a wait at the pharmacy. ZappRx Inc. believes it can help with both.

The Cambridge, Mass., company aims to digitize the interaction between doctors, patients and the pharmacy the way that electronic boarding passes have automated access to the airport. It has developed a smartphone app meant to simplify and speed up the process of filling and tracking prescriptions, Chief Executive Zoe Barry said.

When a doctor decides on a prescription for a particular patient, he or she enters the relevant information in an electronic health record, Ms. Barry said. The ZappRx app, which is compliant with federal privacy laws, can take that information from the health record and make it available to the patient and the pharmacist.

The app enables patients to order and pay for medications electronically, and allows pharmacists to preprocess insurance information and other important data, ZappRx said, which could prevent a wait at the pharmacy for the medication.

The product represents the first real foray of mobile-payments technology into the pharmacy sector, according to the company and its investors.

In addition to sharing information among the various players, the app is meant to be used as an electronic checkout device that a patient can use to pick up medication.

While such technology has long been used in airports, where a passenger can print a boarding pass or use a mobile app to show it, there is no similar product at the pharmacy, the company said.

Ms. Barry said ZappRx recently raised seed funding of $1 million from Atlas Venture, Life Sciences Angel Network and other angel investors. With the funding, ZappRx plans to add additional staff to its six-employee company

Keeping Plants Running From Afar

Rockwell and other global suppliers of factory-automation equipment, including General Electric Co., Emerson Electric Co. and ABB Ltd., increasingly are selling remote monitoring services to help manufacturers fix or prevent problems. These services, which have become more feasible as factories have become more computerized, help companies deal with skill shortages. Those are particularly acute in remote places, such as the mill here in Ticonderoga or on oil rigs in the Middle East.

Billy Delfs for The Wall Street Journal

A worker at Rockwell Automation's engineering call center near Cleveland monitored activity at International Paper's mill in Ticonderoga, N.Y.

Emerson executives who sell monitoring services talk about the "four D's"—dull, distant, dirty and dangerous. Those describe conditions at some factories, mines or oil rigs. It is often hard to find skilled people willing to work in such places, a problem likely to worsen as baby boomers retire.

Under the mantra of learning from "big data," the monitors also would like to analyze information gathered from factory floors to advise their customers on how to improve efficiency. Cloud computing is making it easier to store and analyze vast amounts of data from machines.

But many manufacturers remain wary of giving suppliers too much inside information about how they make products, or of taking the risk that outsiders will inadvertently gum things up. "Some places have bought into it," Rick Dolezal, a vice president at ABB, said in an interview. "Others are just scared to death of it."

A U.S. unit of Germany's Bayer AG uses computerized controls made by ABB to run equipment at a plant making blood-clotting agents in Berkeley, Calif. "We love working with them," David Kavanaugh, a Bayer engineer, said of ABB. Even so, Bayer gives ABB remote access to the control equipment only when a problem needs to be resolved, not all the time. "Being in the pharmaceutical world, we have to be extremely careful about our access control," Mr. Kavanaugh said.

System suppliers still need to work on assuring customers that their data can be shared without major risks. "Some of these industries need to evolve from little data to big data to really prosper," said Charlie Peters, a senior vice president at Emerson. First, he said, "they have to trust us."

Some of the monitoring done by Rockwell is considered so sensitive that it takes place only behind locked doors. In other cases, equipment suppliers help customers set up their own remote-monitoring systems so they don't need to involve outsiders.

The International Paper mill is connected to Rockwell engineers in Cleveland via a dedicated phone line. When they spot a problem, the Rockwell engineers advise people in the mill on what to do. "They can do almost anything," said Mr. Bussey.

Without this help, International Paper probably would need to hire another engineer, Mr. Bussey said. International Paper won't say how much it pays Rockwell for the monitoring. "It's not cheap," said Mr. Bussey, "but we believe it justifies itself."

The goal is "to tell them they're about to have a problem before they have a problem," said Gary Pearsons, Rockwell's global head of customer support. Rockwell engineers in Cleveland recently were able to use pressure data gathered from inside an oil rig in Alaska to tell an oil company it needed to check an air filter.

Eli Lilly & Co., a pharmaceutical company, is installing electronic devices at an insulin plant in Indianapolis that will allow Emerson to monitor certain equipment there. Kurt Russell, an engineer at the Lilly plant, said the service will allow for constant monitoring of things that in the past were checked only now and then. That includes temperatures inside equipment, a possible indicator of trouble.

"It's almost what could be considered a full-time baby sitter," said Mr. Russell. He doesn't see any privacy threats: "They really can't see how you make your products and how you run your equipment."

Among GE's customers is a Lonmin PLC platinum mine in South Africa. Among other things, GE remotely watches the rate at which ore is being fed into crushing machinery.

ABB employs 330 service engineers to monitor automation equipment in the U.S., up 10% from five years ago. Many of them are based at centers in Houston, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. "I think there is a huge upside on it," said Matt Meka, an ABB engineer in New Berlin, Wis. "Not everybody understands what the technology can do for them," he said, adding: 'We've got to do a better job" of explaining that.

Could equipment suppliers actually run factory equipment remotely, rather than just monitoring it? "That will be the trend of the future," said ABB's Mr. Dolezal.

Unusual folding bike shrinks down to 60% the size of other models

The Germany-based team behind the Kwiggle has created a device that is apparently more compact and lightweight than any bike on the market.

If the Moveo electric scooter can be folded down to the size of a portable suitcase, it stands to reason that the traditional push bike could be squeezed into an even smaller space. Taking advantage of the existing market for foldable bikes, the Germany-based team behind the Kwiggle has pushed things even further by creating a device that is apparently more compact and lightweight than any bike on the market.

Those with experience of carrying portable bikes on their commute will know that, while they provide a satisfying ride, they still weigh a considerable amount and can be a pain to haul on and off public transport. The Kwiggle has approached the concept with a new design that utilizes smaller eight-inch wheels and a unique half-seated, half-standing style of riding. Described by the creators as a “pleasant mixture of
biking and fitness walking”, riding the bike also ensures users maintain good back posture. This unusual system and its patented gear system enable the bike to weigh just seven kilograms and fold down to the space of a typical backpack in under ten seconds.

Currently in the prototype stage, the company hopes to release the Kwiggle to the public by the end of the year, although pricing has not yet been announced. Are there other vehicles that could be given a stripped-down, lightweight version?

App uses QR codes to make payments easier

Now hoping to make invoices payments more timely for SMBs, the UK’s Zapper is an app that enables businesses to take payments through QR codes.

The company’s Scan-to-Pay platform first generates a unique QR code for each invoice that is created through the system. Companies can then include this on their paper invoices or online payment gateways. Customers or clients then need to download the app, fill out their details once and any code they scan afterwards will charge their card and instantly send a notification to the business being paid. The video below explains more about the service:

Zapper’s Scan-to-Pay system is free for businesses to implement – with no setup or subscription costs and no extra hardware required. However, businesses could benefit from quicker and more timely payments – Zapper claims that SMBs in the UK are currently owed GBP 36.4 billion in late payments. Are there other ways to make payments less painful for consumers and businesses alike?

App offers rewards to patients for taking their medicine on time

Mango Health is a smartphone app that help patients to take their medication at the right time, as well as offer prizes for those who keep to their schedule

We’ve already seen internet-connected pill bottle caps that help patients to take their medication at the right time. Now Mango Health is a smartphone app that aims to do the same, as well as offer prizes for those who keep to their schedule.

Users first enter the names of the drugs they need to take – whether its important medication or nutritional supplements – and their schedule. The app accesses a database and alerts users when the drugs they’ve entered have special requirements, such as diet or zero alcohol consumption. From the dashboard, users can see at a glance which of their medication they need to take that day. Points are awarded each time the user sticks to their schedule, which can later be exchanged for giftcards, discounts and donations at partners such as Gap, Target and the ASPCA.

Available for free on the App Store, Mango Health could improve the health of patients by offering helpful reminders and warnings, while the gamification aspect could ensure that reluctant users are more likely to take their pills. Are there other ways health professionals could harness patient smartphones to ensure they stick to recovery regimes?

Smart gates track passenger location to avoid flight delays

London’s Heathrow Airport has introduced a new system that lets flight attendants know if someone isn’t going to make their plane.

While travelers have been able to make sure they know the whereabouts of their luggage with innovations such as the hop! trackable suitcase, it’s much harder for airlines to know exactly where their passengers are when it comes time to board. In order to curb delays to flights when customers haven’t turned up on time, London’sHeathrow Airport has introduced a new system that lets flight attendants know if someone isn’t going to make their plane.

Installed in Terminals 1 and 3 at the major airport, the system involves gates that are placed at different points between the entrance and the final boarding gate. As customers progress through the different stages of boarding their flight – from check-in and baggage checks, to passing through security and entering the departure lounge – gates similar to those found in train stations require passengers to scan their boarding pass. When they do so, small screens offer instructions depending on the time left before the flight is due to depart and their location in the airport. For example, if they’re in the wrong terminal they’ll be offered directions to the correct one, and if their flight is due to board they’ll be told to go straight through to their gate. However, if they won’t have enough time to board they’ll be instructed to seek assistance and attendants will be alerted and can start unloading their bags from the plane.

The system gives more information to customers to help them get to the right place, while airlines benefit from avoiding delays that can occur when a passenger goes missing. Could this work in your part of the world?